Page:A Moslem seeker after God - showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century (IA moslemseekeraft00zwem).pdf/43

 dvanced against Antioch and after seven weary months laid siege to the city. In 1099 they advanced on Jerusalem and after a siege of forty days the holy city surrendered. " The merciless Franks did not fail to inflict a terrible vengeance for their own sufferings and the indignities which had been heaped upon their religion and their race. The Jews were burned in their synagogues; and seventy thousand Moslems were put to the sword. For three days the city was given up to indiscriminate pillage and massacre, until a pestilence was bred by the putrefaction of the slain."

Soon Godfrey and his successors extended their dominions until only four cities, Aleppo, Damascus, Hamath, and Hums remained in the possession of the Moslems in Syria. Everywhere the followers of the Prophet were filled with grief and shame and with a great longing to wipe away the disgrace which had fallen on their religion.

" In the year 492 A. H.," says Muir, "consternation was spread throughout the land by the capture of Jerusalem, and cruel treatment of its in habitants. Preachers went about proclaiming the sad story, kindling revenge, and rousing men to recover from infidel hands the Mosque of Omar, and scene of the Prophet’s heavenly flight. But whatever the success elsewhere, the mission failed in the East, which was occupied with its own troubles, and moreover cared little for the Holy Land,